Big Tobacco buys $12.8 billion stake in e-cigarette firm Juul
Tobacco giant Altria will invest $12.8 billion to acquire a 35 percent stake in Juul, the San Francisco vaping company that has quickly gained dominance in the fast-growing e-cigarette market — and notoriety for enabling an addictive nicotine habit among teens.
Juul’s deal with the maker of Marlboro, announced by the companies Thursday, undercuts its long-standing position that it is not Big Tobacco, critics said, and increases its visibility and reach at a time the company is trying to convince regulators and the public that it’s making its products less accessible to teens.
The investment from Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, catapults Juul’s valuation to $38 billion — more than double the previous estimate of $15 billion — making it one of the most valuable private companies in the United States. It will also reward Juul employees, who will receive a collective $2 billion in bonuses.
That amount will be shared among its roughly 1,500 workers, depending on tenure and rank, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
Juul executives have long said that the company’s intent is to help adult smokers quit cigarettes. But public health officials and researchers say Juul’s popularity among middle and high schoolers is prompting teens who otherwise would have never started smoking cigarettes to vape or “juul.” In response to mounting pressure, Juul said in November that it would immediately pull fruit-flavored products from stores, at least temporarily.
There is little definitive research into the long-term health effects of vaping. Tobacco researchers say it is less harmful than smoking cigarettes because e-cigarettes do not contain carcinogens that come from burning tobacco. However, vaping introduces nicotine, a harmful and addictive tobacco derivative, into the body. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams singled out Juul in an advisory this week, calling youth vaping an “epidemic.”
“We understand the controversy and skepticism that comes with an affiliation and partnership with the largest tobacco company in the U.S.,” Juul CEO Kevin Burns said in a statement. “We were skeptical as well . ... We made it very clear that any investment would need to meet demanding and specific criteria to ensure that they are committed to our mission.”
It is Altria’s biggest investment to date, surpassing the recent $1.8 billion it spent for a 45 percent stake in Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group. Juul will remain independent, but Altria will be able to appoint directors representing a third of Juul’s board of directors.
“We strongly believe that working with Juul to accelerate its mission will have longterm benefits for adult smokers and our shareholders,” Altria said.
The move will broaden Juul’s reach by giving the company access to Altria’s more abundant retail outlets — Juul sells its vapes and pods in 90,000 stores, compared with the 230,000 that carry Altria products. And Juul will be able to advertise on inserts in Altria cigarette packs.
“A great advantage of the partnership is access to (Altria’s) best-in-class infrastructure, logistics, sales and distribution strength,” Wells Fargo Securities tobacco analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a research note Thursday. “Juul will have access to all of this.”
The deal will give Altria, which like other tobacco companies has been grappling with declining cigarette sales, a foothold in the burgeoning vaping industry.
Juul is expected to bring in $2 billion in annual revenue, analysts estimate. The company has raised $1.2 billion, with the most recent investment bringing in $650 million, according to a July regulatory filing. Juul investors have included Tiger Global Management.
Globally, sales of vaping products are expected to jump 22 percent each year through 2022, while cigarette sales are expected to decline 0.1 percent, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Altria’s investment is inconsistent with Juul’s repeated assurances that its products are meant to help smokers quit tobacco, addiction researchers said.
“They’re saying they’re not a tobacco company and that this ( Juul) device helps people get off of tobacco, but now they’re partnering with a tobacco company,” said Dr. Mark Rubinstein, a UCSF pediatrics professor who studies nicotine dependence in teens. “It’s probably a shrewd business decision, but I think it raises some additional concerns that they’re now working with Big Tobacco.”
Altria has a long history of fighting and delaying government regulations requiring tobacco companies to disclose the health risks and addictiveness of its products, said Jodi Prochaska, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford University who researches tobacco addiction.
In 2006, after the federal government sued Altria and other major tobacco companies for claims they misled the American public about the dangers of smoking, a federal judge ordered the companies to issue “corrective statements” in ads saying they misled the public for years about the dangers of smoking. But the ads didn’t run for more than a decade because tobacco companies fought to delay and revise the statements to water down the language, Prochaska said.
It’s hard to predict what the Altria-Juul collaboration will bring, she said, but Altria “likely will be looked to for legal expertise in managing regulatory actions.”
In Juul’s hometown of San Francisco, the deal drew swift criticism from city officials who in recent weeks have demanded that Juul provide documentation that it is meeting the city code in its handling of hazardous materials at Pier 70, a historic property that houses Juul’s corporate headquarters. The inquiry came after residents of San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood voiced opposition to Juul’s presence in their community.
“This puts the lie to Juul’s claim that their products are about quitting smoking,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said. “They’re not. Their products are about hooking the next generation of nicotine addicts. Why else would one of the world’s largest tobacco companies invest nearly $13 billion in Juul? This deal puts greed over public health. It’s about creating a new customer base by addicting the next generation.”